


Cold In Dallas

by daddychilton



Category: Halt and Catch Fire
Genre: Love Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4070242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daddychilton/pseuds/daddychilton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a fic to be paired with Season 2, Episode 1. Joe mentions a letter that he sent to Gordon; I simply filled in the blanks as to what was in said letter.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Cold In Dallas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waltass](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=waltass).



> This is a fic to be paired with Season 2, Episode 1. Joe mentions a letter that he sent to Gordon; I simply filled in the blanks as to what was in said letter.

“Did you get my letter?”

“Yeah,” Gordon said. There was a look of sincere sadness in his eyes. It was a look that Joe did not like at all.

“Did you bother to read it?”

Silence. Gordon didn’t want to answer. He shuffled his feet. Joe sighed, and the elevator doors slid open.

As Gordon asked him about the checks and what Joe would do with his, Joe could only think about the letter he’d painstakingly written and sent to Gordon a summer ago.

 *

He’d been traveling for a month. Joe took the slips of paper out of his pocket and began to reread his third draft of the letter he’d been planning to send to Gordon for some weeks now. Everything he’d ever really wanted to say about himself, about Gordon, about _them._ He knew that this was the only time he’d feel confident and vulnerable enough to send it. If he waited until he got back to tell Gordon in person, he knew it would either come out wrong or not come out at all.

He whispered the words he’d so carefully chosen to no one but the trees.

 

_Gordon,_

_I’m sorry I left… I would like to say that it was a hard decision, but it wasn’t at all. It was the only option I could see. It did hurt me deeply to leave you, though._

_I’ve had some time to think and I know in my heart that the person for me is not Cameron Howe. It’s not any other woman, and it isn’t any other man but you. I don’t know if you recall but you’re the main reason why I stayed so long with Cardiff. I probably should’ve run away long before I burned that shipment of the Giant, but I just couldn’t. You got under my skin._

_I miss waking up next to you. Miss seeing you in your office struggling to make the hardware do what you needed it to do without exploding. I miss seeing the way you interact with your girls, and I miss the way that you used to look at me._

_I understand that this has been hard on everyone; you, Donna, Cameron, John, me. I’m not going to defend myself and say that I didn’t cause half the problems because I know very well that I did. I also know that if I hadn’t done all of those things, I wouldn’t have ever gotten to know you._

_You remember the first night in the garage? That’s the night that I knew that you were a genius. Funny; I wanted to kiss you right then and there the moment that it worked, but I restrained myself. Dunno why._

_If I had kissed you then, would it have changed things? I don’t know. I don’t know if I would’ve done the things I’d done at Cardiff. I don’t think I would’ve sacrificed our relationship for all of that, especially now that it all went to shit. I would’ve had you, and, to be honest, I believe you would have been enough to satiate my deep hunger._

_I’ve always been ravenous. Now my tongue wants to taste no one but you._

_I want this letter to convey nothing more than apology and feeling. There’s a great gnawing in me that wants me to go back to Dallas so I can see you, but I can’t fulfill that desire yet. I have too much more to learn about myself while I’m away, and I can’t risk coming back so soon and have all this be for nothing._

_When I get back, I don’t expect you to walk up to my door drunk and reeking of too much cologne, blabbering about how you fucked up whatever with Donna and your kids. I don’t expect that you’ll come over sober with a bottle of bourbon. I don’t expect anything from you because I know you better than that. I doubt our relationship will ever continue. You’re too deserving of the better love that Donna can and does give you. I am nothing more than a husk; a wraith who provides nothing but damnation and ruin in his path._

_I do hope…_

_Gordon, I do hope that we can be friends. I don’t want to come back and never see you again. It’d probably kill me._

_I’m sorry about this letter—sorry if it causes you any sort of pain. It’s not my intent._

_Give Donna and the girls my love._

 

_Ya boy,_

_Joey-Mac_

_P.S._

_Please grow your beard back.”_

 

Joe sighed. It wasn’t going to be better if he rewrote it again. Better to post it now.

*

The elevator door opened, and it was time for them to part. He wished Gordon well, and they said their goodbyes. Joe hoped that this wasn’t the last time he would see him. He missed him too damn much for that.

Dallas had grown cold.


End file.
